Buying a PC as cheaply as possible

Ted_Hutchinson

I went for the suggestion from here I went through Quidco and didn't have the monitor so cost me £188.07. The Esaver code is 305 D08V02 I thought it was a good price. I also went for the XP Professional rather than the vista-business.

donnajunkie

i have heard that windows vista is not very good and that it would be better to just get xp.

sarylou

The main trouble with Vista (so far) - for those of us who are lumped with it - is the support.
Drivers for graphics cards are a big pain at the moment.
And some 'generic' parts are suffering with driver issues, too.

But, it runs fine if all you need is a pre-loaded PC to do day-to-day tasks (I think?), looks nice - especially for those who use a Mac! :laugh: - and although a little memory hungry (like XP was), it'll settle down nicely with SP1 or 2...or maybe 5...?

willing2learn_3

Thanks for all your replies guys!

Well i've had a weird evening, just spent 30mins on the phone to Dell. The man i spoke to was unable to match the spec and the price, even though i have a print out in front of me. In the end i spoke to someone else and they said that the computer i was going for was for businesses only and was only that cheap a price because they are usually bought in bulk!

I asked where do i need to go to on the website to look for home computers and he just said he'll call back tomorrow.

???anyone?

thanks for your time!

willing2learn_3

stresssssssssed! :-(

donnajunkie

willing2learn wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies guys!

Well i've had a weird evening, just spent 30mins on the phone to Dell. The man i spoke to was unable to match the spec and the price, even though i have a print out in front of me. In the end i spoke to someone else and they said that the computer i was going for was for businesses only and was only that cheap a price because they are usually bought in bulk!

I asked where do i need to go to on the website to look for home computers and he just said he'll call back tomorrow.

???anyone?

thanks for your time!

on the main screen there is a line of pictures of the various things they sell. from left it starts notebooks, desktops, servers storage networking etc. move the cursor over the one you want i.e. desktops. it will then show a menu. just move your cursor to home and click on it to get home desktop pc's.

i'm annoyed with dell myself i was seriously considering them but they dont accept many forms of payment and they dont accept my card. it does look like they are trying to push people to get a loan from them to pay for their pc.

donnajunkie

sarylou wrote: »

The main trouble with Vista (so far) - for those of us who are lumped with it - is the support.
Drivers for graphics cards are a big pain at the moment.
And some 'generic' parts are suffering with driver issues, too.

But, it runs fine if all you need is a pre-loaded PC to do day-to-day tasks (I think?), looks nice - especially for those who use a Mac! :laugh: - and although a little memory hungry (like XP was), it'll settle down nicely with SP1 or 2...or maybe 5...?

well what i want a pc for is to surf the net and be able to watch and listen to clips on the net.
i want to be able to install the cd rom with my camcorder to do editing.
i want to be able to install the cd rom with my walkman phone to be able to transfer mp3's etc.
then also i may want to make use of the dvd/cd burner and also buy video games to play on it.
i think i prefer a laptop because i dont have any room to put a desk and chair for a desktop pc.

so wouldwindows vista be likely to give any problems with those things?

willing2learn_3

Thanks for your points about Dell Donnajunkie!

well i still haven't purchased my computer. I am going to attempt to do so online when i get home from work.

Tell me anyone, my friend has just bought a computer and he says he has free anti virus from Norton on it for a month. However he's not very computer literate. I will go over to his place tomorrow to have a look but in the mean time does anyone know if that antivirus clicks in automatically? I've told him not to go online until he's sure.

Any further comments about the Dell thing are appreciated and i will let you all know how i get on as well

thanks!

W2L